


Muscle Memory

by Palebluedot



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Memories, Post-Canon, Swing Dancing, depending on your level of optimism that is lol, they are safe and in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 17:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8294632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot/pseuds/Palebluedot
Summary: “C'mon, let's give it a whirl.” Before Steve can react, Bucky takes his hand and tugs him out into the middle of their living room. “I dunno how easily I could pick you up anymore, but the steps are the same, right?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've always had a soft spot for these two going dancing. Then I started taking swing dancing classes and a monster was born.

Truth be told, Steve's not sure why he's so stuck on jazz today. He's not feeling especially nostalgic, even though Bucky's wearing goddamn _suspenders_ over his white shirt, like he stepped right out of a photo colored only by the dime-bright grin spread across his face. As much as Bucky looks 29, _really_ 29, not just 99 and unusually spry, Steve's not longing for those days, nice as they were. Right now is...right now is _good_. Lazy sunshine slanting in warm through the window, painting the room golden, glinting off Bucky's arm where he's sitting in the armchair just opposite, reading – what more could a guy ask for, huh?

Maybe that's it, then. He's _happy –_ he's got no reason not to be – and jazz always struck him as something to celebrate with. Today seems like as good a day as any to celebrate, Steve decides, and rises.

Bucky glances upwards and smiles softly at Steve when he passes him and fiddles with the record player, but as soon as the needle hits the record and the air swells with brass, it's like a light flicks on behind his eyes. Steve left the volume low so he wouldn't interrupt Bucky's reading, but in a hot second, the book hits the coffee table, and Bucky appears next to him and cranks it way the hell up.

“You like this one?” Steve teases.

“No, I – I _remember_ it.” There's a quiet wildness to Bucky's face, a euphoria. He doesn't trip over too many forgotten memories anymore, seems like most everything's either back or known to be gone for good, so anything new popping up turns him into a kid at Christmastime. It always manages to warm and break Steve's heart all at once. “This song, we danced to it, once. That place – that bar where all the queers used to bring their dates – what was it called?”

Oh hell, Steve hadn't realized they hadn't talked about that old place yet, it's way too important to miss. “Swing Out?”

“Yeah, that was it,” Bucky nods, awed. He stares at the spinning record, and Steve can tell he's looking right through it, across 70 years and just a few streets over. “'Course it was. Used to take you there all the time, didn't I?”

“Just about anytime you had anything left over from your paycheck. You never could get your fill of dancing, I think you taught me how just so you'd always have a willing partner. And,” he adds with a fond smile, “all things considered, I was pretty easy to lead.”

Bucky smothers a laugh behind his hand. “Christ, that's right, you weighed nothing, so you had to go anywhere I wanted. I could just toss you over my shoulder and spin you around as easy as anything.”

“And you _did_. Every time.”

“Aw, you loved it,” Bucky twinkles, and for the thousandth time, Steve wonders why he had to go and fall for such a charmer. 

“Well, I kept coming back, didn't I?”

“Good thing, too. Couldn't have asked for a better partner.” Bucky beams at him, and Steve shakes his head and rolls his eyes, but can't help but smile, smile, smile. He hadn't even been thinking about Swing Out when he put on that record, but now he can see it with perfect clarity: a real hole in the wall – dark, cramped, hot as hellfire, and just about the best place in the world. He still remembers the thrill that bolted through his stomach like lightning the first time Bucky introduced him as his fella, and again when he planted a kiss on him at the bar, right in front of everyone. Nobody even noticed. That was the best part.

How times change.

The song crescendoes to a finish with a great crash of trumpets, and Steve's yanked back into the present, where he finds Bucky staring at him with a gleam in his eye – the one that always makes Steve's fight-or-flight response perk up a frazzled ear. “C'mon, let's give it a whirl.” Before Steve can react, Bucky takes his hand and tugs him out into the middle of their living room. “I dunno how easily I could pick you up anymore, but the steps are the same, right?”

“Wait – _Bucky –_ ” Steve splutters, but it's already too late, because there's a warm hand on the small of his back, and his arm, unbidden, settles behind Bucky's bicep. The grip is easy, just a connection between two people, but the song is fast, and Jesus, it's been a long, long time since Steve's gone dancing.

It shows.

“It might help,” Bucky suggests, visibly biting his cheek, “if you started on the other foot.”

“What're you talking about, I'm doing just – ” Oh. _Right_ foot. Shit. Steve silently makes the change, and Bucky lets loose the giggle he's been fighting.

“You sure I'm the one who taught you how to do this, Rogers? 'Cause it sorta looks like you learned from some poor sap with two left feet.” Bucky goes to turn him under his arm, movements fluid and graceful, right on the beat, and Steve stumbles. “And last time I checked, I only had issues with my arms.”

“I _am_ seventy years out of practice you jerk, cut me some slack,” Steve chides in response to Bucky's stupid smirk.

That _really_ sets Bucky off, a fresh peal of mirth shaking all the way to the tips of his fingers. “Well, what the hell do you think _I_ was gettin' up to that whole time?” he laughs, sending Steve spinning out across the room, then reeling him back in again, just because there's nothing Steve can do about it. “Because I'll tell you, I sure as hell wasn't Lindy Hoppin'.”

A month ago, Bucky never would've made that kind of wisecrack. Hell, a couple months before that, he wouldn't have joked about anything at all. If Steve weren't already busy getting flung around his living room, he'd say he felt like dancing, so he settles for saying “I take it HYDRA was more into Charleston, then?”

“What's that? You wanna do some Charleston?” And before Steve can even think about making a fuss, Bucky changes the footwork right out from underneath him.

“Show-off,” Steve grumbles, eyes fond in spite of himself. Bucky's a wonder, never misses a step – Steve almost _could_ believe he'd spent seventy years hiding out in a dance hall instead of living a nightmare.

“Who, me?” Bucky asks, all innocent, hopping up and sliding back on his heel. “Nah, there's nothin' to it, I'll talk you through it – ” He pauses, concentrates, counts off beats with snapping fingers and tapping toes. Once the music gives the all-clear, he nudges Steve into action. “Okay, rock back on the right, now kick forward – other foot, doll – kick forward, then back – yeah, there you go!”

Steve's blown away. He wonders if Bucky knows he's making all the same chatter he did the _first_ time he dragged Steve into the middle of their living room, determined to teach him how to dance. More importantly, he can't believe they've come far enough for Bucky to be the one helping _him_ remember something. And he _does_ remember, or he's starting to – it's winding back in tendrils, long cords wrapping around his ankles like ivy embracing old fence posts, marionette strings tugging his feet in all the correct directions at the proper times. He can't tell if it's muscle memory or the guiding press of Bucky's hand on his back, but either way, they're moving on-beat, and he's thanking God Bucky's the kind of guy who could never, ever forget how to dance.

“How's that feel?” Bucky asks, glancing down at their feet. Steve blinks – they're in perfect time, and he didn't have to think for a second. He remembers fully now, there's nothing like dancing with a good lead, and he's got his arm around the best of them all.

“Great,” Steve tells him, a little at a loss for words. He's never been so glad of an old song. “It's coming back to me.”

Bucky's eyes spark like firecrackers. “Good, because I'm about to try something, and truth is, I'm not really sure how it's gonna turn out – hold on!”

Steve doesn't have time to hold on before Bucky swings his leg out and _trips_ him, toppling him into free-fall for a split second before swooping down to catch him. Above him, Bucky's wide-eyed and ecstatic. “Holy shit, it worked!”

Steve's heart swells at Bucky's surprise, even as it hammers from the fall. “Don't know why you're so surprised, you must've dipped me a thousand times. Although,” he adds, “you're forgetting a step.”

“What, this?” Bucky leans down and kisses him, real soft, tender and slow, and for a quiet crescendo of a moment, he tastes like the smoky haze of a certain old bar, and Steve feels a hundred pounds lighter. When he smiles against Steve's lips, it's warm. “Couldn't forget that in a million years.”

**Author's Note:**

> Swing Out is, unfortunately, my own invention. I was thinking of something along the lines of Swing Rendezvous, a 1940s bar featuring jazz and women loving women, but over the course of my admittedly brief research, I couldn't track down the name of a similar place queer men might have frequented. I want to believe something of the like would've existed, but in the absence of an example, I couldn't resist a pun on a super-fun Lindy move and being “out”.


End file.
